This paper, published in Communication Physics, is led by the ARC Gravitational Wave Discovery Center of Excellence (OzGrav) of the University of Western Australia, and cooperates with the ARC Engineering Subsystem Center of Excellence, Niels-Bohr Institute in Copenhagen and California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
David Blari, an emeritus professor from the Department of Physics, University of Western Australia, pointed out that this technology combines acoustic vibrating quantum particles called phonons with laser photons, thus creating a new amplification technology, in which the combined particles are circulated back and forth for billions of times without being lost.
Blair said: "More than a hundred years ago, Einstein proved that light appeared in the form of small energy packets, which we now call photons."
One of the most complex applications of photons is gravitational wave detector, which allows physicists to observe the ripples in space-time caused by cosmic collision.
"Two years after Einstein predicted photons, he suggested that heat and sound also appeared in the form of energy packets, which we now call phonons," Blair said. "It is much more difficult to control the phonons in quantum form alone because they are usually overwhelmed by a large number of random phonons called thermal background."
It is reported that Blair was awarded the famous Prime Minister's Science Award in 2020 for his contribution to the first detection of gravitational waves.
Dr. Michael Page, the first author of the paper, said that the trick is to combine phonons and photons, so that a wide range of gravitational wave frequencies can be amplified at the same time.
"This new breakthrough will allow physicists to observe the most extreme and concentrated matter in the known universe, because it will collapse into a black hole, which happens when two neutron stars collide," Dr. Page said.
Blair said that these waveforms sounded like a short scream because their pitch was too high for the current detector to hear.
"Our technology will make these waveforms clear and audible, and will also reveal whether neutrons in neutron stars will split into components called quarks in this extreme state. The most exciting thing about seeing nuclear matter turn into a black hole is that this process is like the opposite of the big bang that created the universe. Watching all this happen is like watching an upside-down movie "The Big Bang Theory."
Blair said that although this technology does not represent an immediate solution to improve the gravitational wave detector, it provides a low-cost improvement method.